Are social network platforms pedagogically friendly A discourse analysis of online chats in ESL context

Number of online users has unprecedentedly increased in recent years. This may be a blessing at first glance, however, the status quo if it remains, is not useful for education system. The reason is that onliners tend to limit their time and focus on entertainment and fun. In order to acquit the platform itself of the charges of lacking potential for pedagogical purposes, the current study, considered the nature of these communications especially through chat platforms. Participants in this study were fifteen bachelor’s students who were completing the second year of their program in TESL. They were deliberately involved in completing a series of grammatical task through the medium of online chat. The rationale for this selection was the belief that if users can apply online platforms to discuss grammatical task, they will easily utilize it for addressing content and other areas. The discussion was carried out in five 45 minute sessions over sentence combining activities in Facebook Messenger. According to discourse analysis of their results supported by their account of their experience in this activity as well as pedagogical features of this platform, the study found that this platform can be used as an effective pedagogical tool in improving language skills.

Keywords:

task-based exercise , Facebook Messenger , online platforms , social networks , discourse analysis